Persistence of Breakfast
by Nyflame
Summary: One man. One mission. And the world between them. Feedback appreciated.


The characters herein are the rightful property of Cardcaptor Sakura and CLAMP. I have nothing against IHop or Beverly Hills baking products. Really, I swear.

* * *

Li Syaoran had always been partial to pancakes.

In fact, he loved them more than almost anything. Anyone who knew him at all knew that birthday presents were taking him to The Pancake House, anniversaries were fluffy buttermilk cakes cooking in the frying pan, and above all, that miscommunications and minor temper flares were cured after one bite of a good pancake.

So it was really no surprise when Li awoke, suddenly, one morning before the sun was even up with an extremely powerful urge: _Pancakes_.

The thought reverberated in his head. He was not aware of his actions, as he was not fully awake, as he sat up and set his feet upon the floor. He stared at the wall in front of him. The room was pitch black, but he knew the wall was there, and he squinted in an effort to see it. After sitting on the edge of his mattress for some time in this manner, he stood up and groped around near his dresser to find the light switch.

Perhaps it was the shock of the sudden blinding light that sent Syaoran tripping over his feet out of the room. Or perhaps it was the thought that had entered his head, which was that he couldn't remember if he closed his garage door when he came home last night. Syaoran did not consciously register why he was walking to the kitchen in the middle of the night. All he knew was one concrete truth: He wanted pancakes. And he wanted them now.

Slowly he walked down the hall. Head held low, through tired eyes he could see lines on his feet from where they had been pressed against the mattress.

_Pancakes._

He paused when he got to the end of the hall to look out the window. The street lamp illuminated the damp road in front of his house; it had rained. Li became aware that not even one bird could be heard yet; he registered, but cared little, that it must be very early. Birds' days started earlier than any sane creature would ever want.

Thoughts of the nonexistent birds floated around in Li's mind as he continued across the living room. He was not really thinking at all; he was too tired for much coherent thought: they were merely there, bringing subdued chuckles to him as funny insights passed by.

The sound of the kitchen clock ticking seemed louder than usual in the still night. Fleetingly Li wondered whether it was broken or if it was always this loud. Perhaps it always ticked so obviously. He was never at home most days anyway; his work took priority over all other would-be aspects of his life.

Almost all.

_Pancakes_.

He flipped on the kitchen light and opened the refrigerator. Mechanically, almost compulsively, he took out the carton of eggs and set them behind him on the counter. He cleared away the dish towel and the cutting board that he had left the night before and took down a large bowl from the cupboard.

When he looked back to the refrigerator, he nearly died of fright -- no! It couldn't be! It was too terrible for Syaoran to believe. Slowly, hesitantly at first, not wanting to believe it, he pushed aside the items on the middle shelf. His search became frantic and disbelief became panic as he continued to dismantle his refrigerator.

He had _no buttermilk_.

This was the worst thing that could have befallen him. No honey, even, would not have been as dire -- he could have substituted it with sugar, or even molasses if he was extremely desperate. He stared at the 2 percent half-gallon of milk on the upper shelf with loathing. Substituting buttermilk with 2 percent would be like putting in salt instead of white flour.

No buttermilk meant no pancakes.

Li stood in the kitchen for some time, staring at the eggs on the counter, trying to think through the situation but at the same time incapable of keeping a constructive thought in his head. He blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it. His long, messy bangs fell in front of his eyes, obscuring the already blurry world before him.

There was only one thing for it. If there wasn't any buttermilk, then he must _get_ some, and quickly. He looked at the floor, pondering. It was then that he noticed he had not got on anything worthy of a public appearance; if he was going to go shopping at two in the morning, he noted briefly, it would be wise to appear in rather more than Fruit of the Loom boxer-briefs.

He scanned the room. Over the couch in the connected den was the laundry he had not had time to fold the night before -- normally, for an organized, clean person such as himself, this would have appalled him, and he could not have proceeded with his life until he had folded and put it all away, but household chores were not of much consequence at such a time.

Crossing the den, he put on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt from the couch and his pile vest from the coat rack in the entry room. Finding better suited attire in his dresser was out of the question; his bedroom was farther away from the kitchen than was the front door, and there was no time to lose. Slipping on a pair of tennis shoes without bothering to search for socks or tie his laces, and grabbing a crumpled bill from the table that he had pulled out of his pocket several hours earlier upon arriving home; it had not even made it back into his wallet; he shut the front door behind him and ascended the stairs onto the sidewalk. It was cold and dewy; he could see little puffs of cloud when he breathed.

The city clock downtown could be seen peeking above the roofs of the suburban houses. He looked up at it as he turned the corner, squinting to see the hands on the dial: 2:47 AM.

* * *

The FoodMart was just down the road from Li's house, and a long-time friend of his, Tomoyo Daidouji, often worked the late shift there. When she saw Syaoran come through the sliding glass doors she waved to him, but he didn't have any time to stop. He was a man on a mission. Waving back could quite possibly make him forget what he needed to buy.

There was a _very_ disruptive person with a shopping cart in front of him as he tried to pass them into the dairy isle. If they were not actively trying to keep him behind them then Li could not imagine the reason for their taking up most of the isle; at last he became so impatient that he doubled back and went went all the way to the other side of the store to enter the dairy isle from the other end.

He picked out two small cartons of buttermilk and quickly turned back to the checkout line. On his way there, it occurred to him that he could not remember whether he had any flour at home. He hesitated by the baking isle, taking a step first towards the checkout and then back, and another just barely into the isle; indecisive. He did not remember seeing any flour at home; but then, he had not, after all, opened the cupboard; he had not gotten further than the refrigerator. A small, doubtful scenario playing out in Li's mind, involving several more trips to the supermarket if, once back home, he should find nearly all of his ingredients gone missing sent him down the isle for flour. He picked up some baking soda as he passed by it, just in case.

He perused the isle impatiently, scanning the labels on the bottoms of the shelves. _Buckwheat Flour, Waffle Mix, Chocolate Chip Cookie Batter._ No, no, none of these would do. Where was the _pancake_ mix? He knelt down on the floor and ran his finger along the shelves, making sure not to miss a single label. It had to be here. Surely they could not be sold out.

Just when he was about to give up he spotted it -- Land O' Lakes 100 percent Buttermilk Flour, hidden, tucked back behind the more popular brands. He shook his head angrily at them, tucking the flour into the crook of his arm and turning back abruptly to the checkout.

Predictably, there was no line. Tomoyo greeted him with a friendly smile as he approached.

"Hi Tomoyo," he muttered; low, resolute, placing his items on the counter. He made to reach into his back pocket for his wallet and was promptly struck with the unpleasant reality that he was wearing sweat pants, and his wallet was certainly not anywhere on him; it was likely sitting in his pants at home, on his bedroom floor.

Tomoyo's reply came vaguely and, in the midst of Li's predicament, without much acknowledgment. But she continued, "Forget the icing or something?"

Syaoran stopped, and peered at her in some concern. Icing on pancakes? Surely Tomoyo didn't think him that crazy! His mouth opened to ask her if she oughtn't to quit her shift early and get some sleep when she spoke again. "$7.62,"

This was a problem. Li had no money, no credit cards on him even. Tomoyo was looking at him, waiting; and, rather unsettled, he searched in his front pockets for loose change. Finding the bill he had unceremoniously stuffed in before his abrupt departure, his immense relief was somewhat lessened at the thought of how _much_ it was: but the concern proved groundless, because luckily it was a twenty.

He handed the folded bill to Tomoyo. The cash machine beeped as she typed in the amount, and a high-pitched bell screeched in Syaoran's tired ears as the drawer popped open.

"Li, you look awful." She turned to hand him his change, pushing the drawer shut with her other hand. He dropped a dime on the counter as he was putting the change in his pocket. _Damn_. Every minute wasted was one less minute that he would have to make his breakfast. Tomoyo picked it off the counter and handed it back. "Having a hard day already? It's not even dawn."

"No," he replied, "pancakes." And leaving Tomoyo incredulously staring after him, his receipt still held in her hand, he picked up the bag at the far end of the counter and hurried out the door.

He crossed the parking lot, looking at the sidewalk as he walked down it. He found himself thinking that there was need of a street-cleaner; an abundance of leaves had fallen from the trees above and settled on the sidewalk, crunching underneath Syaoran's feet. In fact he found himself thinking quite a lot of things, slowing his pace a little as he began to forget where he was going.

_Pancakes._

Li had been walking for some time when he looked up and saw that his feet had carried him far from his usual path; he had managed to walk all the way downtown and had passed the turn to his street ten minutes ago. No matter. Li's house was widely accessible from many points of town, albeit some routes took a lot longer than others. He glanced at his watch; noted, briefly, that it was nearly three; then looked around for possible shortcuts back home.

Li had a one-track mind. And now that he had his flour and buttermilk, the only objective visible to him was to get home, soon and without much effort.

Once he had worked out the general direction that he needed to go he set off at once towards it, but soon was confronted with a large and uninvited hill and a fence directly before him; after some searching, he found that a set of stairs sloped down to the bottom of the hill, where the sidewalk continued down the street. He could see the roads that he could take back home from up here.

He made it down the first step alright; it was the _second_ step that gave him trouble, snagging his loose shoelaces between the boards and ultimately causing him to fall headlong to the ground. Before he realized that he was falling, he felt his pancake mix slip from his fingers. As if in slow motion, he watched as the thin paper package exploded against the cold, hard, wet concrete, soft white pancake mix spilling out across the black asphalt and all down the steps and into the street.

He landed hard on his shoulder and his elbow. He let out a low groan, rolling painfully over onto his back. He opened his eyes slowly and looked up at the sky. It was dark, covering the stars in a blanket of depressing, threatening rainclouds. He blinked a few times and pushed himself to a sitting position.

He rubbed his shoulder as he slowly stood up. He stumbled and put his hand on his leg to steady himself; it was then that he was struck with sudden horror. Hastily he put his hand in his vest pocket, and breathed a sigh of relief. His buttermilk had not fallen out and was on the opposite side that he had landed on; it was perfectly intact.

So much could not be said about the pancake mix. Li had momentarily forgotten it, and when he turned around to look at the stairs, wondering what had caused his rapid fall, it was brought inappreciatively to his attention that his now ex-breakfast material was laying sadly on the ground, turning into unrecognizable globules of mush as the water from the damp road soaked into it.

Li cursed. Colorfully. And then, because it all felt so completely unbelievable, he broke out in a streak of angry outbursts, sinking in despair to his knees. _I don't believe this_. He shook his head slowly, angrily, at the ground.

The thought presently came into his mind that, however terrible the current situation may be, soon enough another situation would arise in which, given the condition of his pancake mix, he would be forced to go shopping once again. The fact remained that his breakfast was ruined and he needed more, and there was no debate over it. It was the disgruntled anticipation of this that got him up and looking around for a grocery store; there were none. Not in this part of town.

Well, but then, there _must_ be something, perhaps a flea market or a small shop, somewhere: Syaoran was torn between the decision of which would take less time; going all the way back to the FoodMart or searching around for a closer store in the present vicinity.

Definitely going back to the FoodMart. That, at least, held a guarantee of its existence.

As he made his decision, turning around to ascend the stairs, he absent-mindedly peered at his watch dials, glowing faint green in the dark morning. He stared at them, certain they were wrong, or that perhaps he had got it on upside-down; then, hurriedly, pressed the LIGHT button. With a chilling horror he regarded the time as the faceplate's illuminated numbers faded back to darkness: 3:24 AM.

Without hesitation he turned and tore up the rickety staircase. Not bothering himself with watching for oncoming cars, he raced over the hill and across the road, grabbing onto a street lamp as he turned a corner to prevent making a faceplant into the street. The FoodMart, he knew, closed its doors at 3:30. He would never make it. It was at least a ten-minute trip from here to there and he only had five. He stumbled over his shoelaces, once, and, barely stopping, tucked them into the sides of his shoes and vaulted over a short fence, running across somebody's lawn to prevent having to go all the way around the fence and _then_ reunite with the sidewalk.

When he got to the end of the road, looking down at at the intersection with the street going north and railroad tracks going west, he saw that the Do Not Cross bars were lowering themselves across the road and the lights were flashing. He called hoarsely out to them as he neared them, though he knew it would do no good; he could see see the train plainly coming with his own two eyes, and there was nothing to be done for it.

With an idea in his head that he could dash across the tracks before the train reached the intersection, he kept running, but it soon became clear that he was going to be run over if he attempted this. By the time he got to the intersection the train was already rumbling past, without any hope of Li crossing the street. There was no hope of going around the train, either. There was no going under it. And there was definitely no going through it. No, he must wait... wait... wait...

He cursed and let out a cry of frustration; through the gaps between the train cars, he could see the lights going off at the FoodMart. The store was closing even as he stood here, waiting for the train with the length of cars that went back too far away to remember. Li watched down the road, trying to see the end of it, but there simply was none.

He shouted again, unable to believe this was happening to him. This _had_ to be a dream. Or a hoax. Li could not accept that a train should come along at the exact moment he needed to cross the street. It was utterly inconceivable.

When, at last, the final car of the endless train passed by him, he poised himself ready to leap across the road. The only problem was, the bars that prevented his crossing were taking an unnecessary amount of time to raise themselves after the departure of the train; _surely_ it was safe to cross now, for the train was well out of sight. The second the bars gave a little shudder and began to lift, waiting only long enough for them to make a space that he could duck under, Li dashed across the road, very nearly impaling himself on a fencepost trying to get around the corner.

He let out a strangled cry, the sound wrenching painfully from his throat, as he witnessed the last of the late staff get into their cars and drive away. But he was too out of breath to really maintain it, and so it came out in the form of little more than an extremely loud cough. Li ran towards the store, waving his arms half-heartedly as a signal to wait. But this was all in vain.

The parking lot was as empty as the surrounding streets as Li stood in the middle of it. A weak breeze blew leaves across his feet, and the air smelled musty and in threat of oncoming rain. The only sound that Li could hear was the street lamp above him, crackling softly every few seconds, the light faintly fading and coming back again, until at last it went out entirely. The lot went dark.

_Damn, damn, damn._ He clenched his fists and dug his fingernails into his palms. The store had closed. And Li, cold and bruised, all out of breath and pancake mix, and still hungry. He put his hands in his pockets and felt the small paperboard containers. At the very least he had his buttermilk. Perhaps... perhaps he had some flour at home, after all. Perhaps he was better off just going back to his house.

But then, what if not? What if -- horrible thought -- he should go all the way home and begin cooking and find that he had to go out _again_, and after he had come home and everything -- and -- and the store was closed, how could it be closed? He needed flour, how dare it close, he was cold and tired and hungry and he no flour and the store was closed, and... and...

Li found himself thinking in circles, sporadically, and shook his head, half in frustration and half to clear it.

He had to find somewhere to buy flour, that was all there was to it. It just wouldn't do at all to go all the way home and find that he had none. He looked up, and saw, through the scattered bushes on the side of the parking lot, a Conoco gas station several blocks away. Perhaps they would carry flour. Syaoran had it in his mind that gas stations were rather like miniature grocery stores; only, they carried but one type of every product as opposed to forty, which accounted for their small size.

And so he began his short trek across several streets to the gas station, one-tracked, closed-minded. Weary and exhausted, he pushed open the door. _Pancakes..._

Despite the fact that the station did seem have at least one of just about everything, the isles were not at all arranged like the grocery store, and, given that there was not any _more_ than one of everything, this made it quite difficult indeed to find anything. Most items appeared to be randomly assorted upon various shelves. Annoyingly, they were also quite low, so that he had to bend down considerably to see what he was looking at; for the isle was too narrow for him to step back and observe the labels from a distance. This caused his hair to fall into his face, rendering it even more difficult to see much of anything.

Nevertheless, he pressed on, going from item to item on the shelf, determined, stoic, undeterrable. When he reached the end of the isle, he turned and continued down the other side of the shelf. But not even a whiff of any sort of flour whatsoever could be found.

Frustrated, he looked up at the refrigerated goods to the left of the shelves. He frowned, looking to see if they had buttermilk for future reference, and lo! There it was! He saw it: Flour. Next to the baking soda, directly below the milk.

Fighting the urge to announce to the entire store that flour did not belong in a refrigerator, as far as Li Syaoran was concerned, he strode quickly to the door and pulled it open. But it was then that he realized that it was not _quite_ right; Beverly Hills All-Purpose Unbleached Flour was bound to produce different results than Land O' Lakes 100 percent Buttermilk Flour. Perhaps Land O' Lakes 100 percent Buttermilk Flour was not a generic item in most stores; he looked again to the shelves in the refrigerator, but this was the only package of flour _in the whole store_.

Frowning, he read the ingredients. Perhaps flour did not vary much in its production. It was different, to be sure, but then; it _was_ flour, after all, it couldn't be so very different from any other flour. And so he rapidly made up his mind, noting as he payed for it that he had lost his baking powder somewhere between the staircase and the gas station; he had not thought to check for it after the scarring sight of his flour laying pitifully on the wet ground. Thus, he angrily paced the store for baking powder, and upon finding it, quickly paid and left.

As he walked down the road on the way home, it began to get somewhat breezy. It was really more of slight gusts, but by the time Li reached his door he had been walking for some time and was quite chilled. Relieved, but feeling rather dejected, he tossed his keys onto the table and headed straight for the kitchen. He did not even take off his shoes.

* * *

The kitchen was warm with heat from the griddle. Li opened one of his windows halfway and poked at the sides of his pancake to ensure it would be perfectly round. He smiled.

It was a storybook pancake, fluffy, white, and just the right size; not too large for a first pancake of the morning but not so small that you would wish you had made two. And, it was the best pancake Li Syaoran thought he had ever smelled. He resisted the urge to eat it right off the stove; he had the large mixing spoon he could use so as not to bother with washing a fork; however, Li was a practical man, and even under the influence of extreme stress and temptation as he was now, he knew that it would not taste very good at all. No, it must be cooked. And he cooked it, impatiently. He flipped up its edges with the spatula and peered underneath, waiting for the perfect hue of golden-brown to flip it. This was it -- this was perfect, it was going to be the _best _pancake in the _world_, Li was sure --

As he was scooting the spatula under it, his doorbell rang. Li froze, pancake half aloft, the uncooked top of it slowly flowing down into the griddle. Oh God. What was he to do? -- if he stayed like this, not only would his pancake be ruined, but whomever was at his door would also be left waiting for a long time. Perhaps they would go away. No, that wouldn't do. But it was too late to flip the pancake now, he saw as he looked down that the angle had caused it to form a rather irregular shape; it would never turn out; as far as Li was concerned it was already over. Breakfast had failed. Done. Gone. The end.

There was only one thing left to do. His doorbell rang again, anxiously, drawn out; and Li, abandoning his pancake, alone and mishappen in the pan, went to answer it.

He was not in good cheer as he yanked the door open viciously, spatula in hand. He was fully intending never to give the person on the other end any chance to speak at all; he would make them sorry they ever came to his door, indeed; but he was so angry over the failure of his perfect pancake by the time he stood on the threshold, and his teeth were so _very_clenched together as a result of his temper, that his words faded away in his mouth and he simply stood, simmering. Afew drops of pancake batter fell off the spatula and landed with soft _plop_s at his feet.

A tall man, impeccably dressed despite the hour, was standing on his porch. Li vaguely recognized him through his bangs as his next-door neighbor; but this fact was uncertain due to the overwhelming distraction of the catastrophe at hand.

His doorstep visitor greeted him entirely too cheerfully, given what Li had just gone through, and before he could even register that he would do well to answer, the man was off and talking again. He explained that the smells floating out of Li's open kitchen window had found their way halfway across the neighborhood and he had been unable to sleep, and had come to investigate the cause of the incredibly amazing scent.

Li frowned. Breakfast to Tsukishiro Yukito generally occurred about this time of day; however, despite the fact that it was Yukito's own fault that breakfast was ruined, he did _not_ want to have to share any future pancakes that might come, and his mind whirled to think of an answer that would scare his neighbor away. At this he failed: there was nothing Yukito would not eat. He stood in the doorway, silently.

When he did not answer, he saw Yukito, with an inquiring expression, open his mouth. He saw him look past the door and into his house. But the next thing that Syaoran heard was not a proposal of a self-invitation to breakfast; it was a loud, high-pitched, ear-splitting screech.

Syaoran immediately let out a painful yell and clapped his hands over his ears; smoke alarms were entirely too loud, and louder still at four o'clock in the morning. He did not know what became of Yukito; his thoughts were focused on one thing only, and swiftly turning and running across the house, he saw what could have been his breakfast -- and the rest of his kitchen -- burning and his stove emitting a large cloud of black smoke. He stood for a brief moment, stunned; then he grabbed for the fire extinguisher from the wall, unhooked the hose, and let loose its contents on his flaming kitchen.

After some time the fire went out, but not without taking at least ¾ths of his kitchen with it: his wall and the side of his refrigerator were scorched, and the plastic bowl he had been mixing the batter in had melted and thus released its contents across the length of his counter, which had immediately cooked in the intense heat into one large, mishappen, burnt pancake. Likewise, his bread had merged with the thin storage bag it was in, the tips of his window blinds were burned, and his potholders were as good as gone. The only trace he could find of them was a small pile of ashes somewhere in the vicinity of the stove.

As he stood in shock, the pancake on the griddle began to smoke faintly; he made to take the pan off the stove dropped it directly: the handle was quite hot. The pancake was flung to the tile floor several feet from the pan, where he stomped on it repeatedly.

Syaoran stared at the burnt, smoldering pile of charcoal at his feet and his face contorted into a scowl. He stood, his arms held frozen at his sides, shell-shocked into a complete inability to move. He could only stare at the floor with haunted eyes.

This was too much. He could not bear it. He could not look at it one second longer; no, he must get away, leave the house completely, go somewhere, anywhere, else. Abruptly, stiffly, he turned and walked indurately out of the kitchen.

As he neared his open door he became aware that Yukito had fainted on his doorstep. He stepped over him onto the porch and hesitated, briefly, wondering if he should do something about it, but the problem at hand was _much_ too overwhelming to dwell long on anything else. Deciding that the man would wake up later, he shut the front door and stumbled down the steps onto the sidewalk. Breakfast was more important than Tsukishiro Yukito. By the time he had reached the end of the walk all thought of Yukito had vanished; he was too traumatized and wracked with incredulity over his kitchen and his breakfast to even care.

* * *

Li was feeling somewhat better as he walked along the empty road to The Pancake House, just down the street. He almost smiled when he opened the door, but was really too set on his destination to put out the effort.

_..Pancakes.._

He had not actually come to The Pancake House in some time; he noted that the tables had been rearranged, and some of the ones against the walls had been replaced with booths. Syaoran did not mind; he liked booths just as well, and as he took his seat in one he pulled a menu from where it was nestled behind the salt and pepper jars. They had changed their menus a little bit as well, and he quickly looked for Buttermilk Pancakes. He became quite worried at first when he could not find them; but soon he saw them, indexed under "Breakfast". The Pancake House had expanded somewhat since it opened, and had served progressively less pancakes and more varied meals; Li did not doubt that someday it would not serve any pancakes at all, and he was immensely relieved to find that it was not this day.

Presently a waitress came by and lingered long enough to fill his water glass and inform him that his server would be coming soon. As Syaoran was already certain of what he wanted; indeed, he had known before he even opened the door; he waited with growing impatience and looked over the new items on the menu. They had added quite a lot, which Li found incredibly unnecessary: Who would come to The Pancake House to order French toast?

A small, indignant, forced little huff that could have passed as an extremely polite, covered-up clearing of the throat caused Li to look up from his menu. He frowned, the explanation of the nearly silent, disapproving cough becoming immediately clear to him: His waiter, a tall, dark-haired man with an expression of extreme dislike towards Syaoran, was none other than Kinomoto Touya, his mutually agreed-upon rival, though they had never actually acknowledged each other's existence on the planet. Their innate, reciprocated loathing was simply a known fact between both, and each glowered at the other for some time over the top of the menu. Neither would be the one to break the gaze, nor to disturb the silence.

At last, stiffly, Li twitched his index finger at the Buttermilk Pancake under "Breakfast" on his menu. Touya's expression darkened, and he plucked the menu from Li's hands and lurched away into the dark, far end of the restaurant.

As he waited, Syaoran took to arranging the items on his table in a symmetrical manner: they were all out of sorts and strewed about in a disorganized way, and the salt was knocked over. It was a poor sort of busboy, he thought with disgust, that would have the audacity as to merit such a mess. This of course Syaoran could _not_ bear, and by the time his pancake came along he had managed to disperse the objects in a respectable formation across the table, so that they formed a sort of largest-to-smallest pattern. He could hardly breathe as the plate was set before him.

_Pancakes_.

Syaoran was reaching for his fork, looking down to the pancake as he did so, when he froze. He sat, unmoving, his hand stopped halfway to the fork as his anger at what he was seeing mounted. He stared, stared, stared at his plate; the more he sat and stared, the angrier and more disbelieving he became.

This was no pancake.

This

was

a _waffle._

Li did not know what to think. He did not know how to react to this. He simply sat, unable to accept the reality of the situation.

Presently his thoughts alighted on the dark, inveterately stoic man whom had brought this inexplicable botchery of his breakfast upon him. Li growled at the image of the man in his head.

_He _did this.

On _purpose_.

This abomination was too much for Syaoran to bear; he got up in great disgust, looked around for Touya in order to tell him a thing or two about pancakes, and, when he could not be found, walked out. He left his waffle on the table, untouched, his silverware arranged on either side of the plate, undisturbed. He had not even unfolded his napkin.

* * *

Li was desolate as he walked slowly home.

_..Pancakes..._

He kicked an empty soda can forlornly down the sidewalk as he went down it. The thin, tinny sound of it bouncing against the cement was comforting to Syaoran, in this dark, lonely night. When he reached a crosswalk he kicked it into the road, feeling that it would bring him some small satisfaction to see it get run over; but there were neither cars up nor down the deserted streets. No, he was alone.

Crossing the road, he looked vaguely around at his surroundings. To his right, behind a row of uninviting dwellings with darkened windows, lay a tall building with a peaked roof, brightly illuminated with fluorescent lights. At the top of the peak, in large white letters was proclaimed, **IHOP** International House of Pancakes.

In his many outings for pancakes in the recent months, exclusively at The Pancake House, Li had passed by the IHop on his way back home but had never gone in, due to the fact that he was usually too full to think about eating much of anything. He stood in the middle of the crosswalk, hesitant. He had never been to IHop and so was not certain of the quality of their pancakes; there was nothing more depressing than a bad pancake; but then, if he did not go, he might not get any pancakes at _all_.

And so, numb but determined, Li cut across the parking lot, passing by the empty buildings to the small restaurant, glowing invitingly in the dusky cold.

The restaurant was empty and still, so much so that he rather started when the door shut behind him with what he regarded as an unnecessary amount of noise. There was no one in sight. He stood, peering around the corner to the kitchen, and when several minutes had passed with no one coming to seat him, he chose a table himself and there, impatiently, he waited. The items on the table were much more organized than those at The Pancake House, though this might have been due to the fact that there was almost nothing _on_ the table. No salt and pepper. No Tabasco sauce. Not even any little jelly-containers.

Hours passed. At least, they felt like hours to Syaoran; he could not be sure, when he looked at his watch it became apparent that the battery had died. He was rather thirsty and took to clearing his throat loud enough that he surmised anyone near might notice his existence, and forthwith bring him some service or at least some water. But no one came; no one saw him, no one noticed that he was there. The restaurant was completely dead but for the lights; there was no music, no customers, no sounds coming from the kitchen. Li began to wonder whether they were closed and had simply forgotten to lock the door.

He looked wearily out the window. The street lamp just outside was shining in upon his table and casting hazy shadows across the floor, and the blinds on the window were half-closed, shading the inside of the restaurant in a dark dusk. He could see the leaves on nearby trees barely moving in the breeze. Occasionally, a car passed.

When at last a waitress meandered over to his table, rather grumpily, to be sure. Upon ordering, she appeared visibly disapproving that he wanted only a buttermilk pancake. The thought passed through Li's mind that at the least she could make the attempt to be friendly, as he _was_ a costumer and had been quite patient. However, he wisely chose to keep this observation to himself; his waitress did not seem at all the sort of person that would appreciate constructive criticism.

As he gazed around the empty room after she had gone, he noted a pen on the floor by his feet. It was a standard pen, probably the kind that the waiters would give you to sign the check, solid white with black tips. There was no logo or brand name anywhere on the pen, only the faint trace of indents where letters might used to have been. He twirled it between his fingers.

Presently he took to drawing a small design on his napkin, which, eventually, turned into a sort of lopsided stick figure. After a time, he decided that it looked too lonely, so he tried drawing a little landscape. Li had forgotten that he had the artistic ability of a piece of toast. He crossed it out several times, disappointed, and turned the napkin over.

He rested his chin in his hands and closed his eyes, bored, tired, hungry, and still wanting for some water. They opened when he heard approaching footsteps, and, turning and looking over his shoulder, he saw his waitress coming over, carrying his Heaven all by itself on a metal platter.

Li's mouth watered at the anticipation of the taste and smell of the pancake. At last, at long last, here it was! The image of perfection: The _perfect_ pancake. The waitress set it down on the table.

Li looked at her and nodded his appreciative approval. Then, just to be certain that she understood just _how much_ this perfect pancake meant to him, he nodded again, vigorously, when he could be quite certain she was looking.

He waited, eagerly but impatiently, as she set his silverware next to the plate, and, stepping around his table to a small shelf, filled a glass of water and placed it on the table. When she had turned away and was walking back to the kitchen, he snatched up his fork in a hurry. But before he could take the first bite the small phial-shaped bottle of syrup at the edge of his table caught his eye, and he picked it up, finding that it was pre-heated.

Warm syrup flowed generously over the lightly browned cake.

He cut a piece off and put it in his mouth, and no sooner had he done so than the fork dropped to the floor with a clatter, his glass of icewater spilled across the table, and Syaoran's first bite returned to the plate. He looked in horror at the pancake, disregarding the upset fork and water glass. Without question, this was _the very worst_ pancake he had ever tasted in all his life. Slowly he picked up his napkin from his lap and set it on the table. Slowly he looked around. No one was in sight. He was alone, here in the dark pierced only by the dim overhead lamp, alone with the worst pancake in the world, a lonely little island in a sea of despair.

In this isolation, in this silent, desolate corner of the restaurant, Syaoran put his head in his hands and rested his elbows on the table. He did not want to look at the awful disgusting disgrace of a -- no, it was not even a pancake; it-- it was a _disaster_. He closed his eyes and sighed, so small and depressing that he was not even sure if it came out at all. Oh God, not this, not now...

"Damn." he said, quietly.

He sat there, for some time, until at last his disconcerting waitress came up to him, inquiring if he was to be needing anything else?

_Only some cyanide_. Li shook his head, slowly. The waitress took a pen out of her pocket and scribbled on his check before placing it on the table. Vaguely, Li was aware of her wishing him a good day, and he muttered unintelligibly in reply; but this comment was almost too absurd to be feasible, and Li sat, for a time after she had cleared his table and gone, contemplating if she had really said it or if he had merely heard it. A good day? _Too late._

* * *

It began to rain on the way home. While they were small, dispersed droplets as he walked across the parking lot, by the time he had reached the first stoplight after the crosswalk it was pouring down quite heavily. He turned up the collar of his vest and, slowly, continued on.

..._Pancakes..._

Li was soaked and soggy when he finally arrived on his front porch. He walked dejectedly up the stairs and stood before the door, unable to process the situation. He could not think. After a time, he reached out and grasped the door handle.

It was locked.

Syaoran reached into his pocket for his keys; but they were not there. He checked his other pocket. They were not there either; in fact, all at once, in the moment between putting his hand in his other pocket and looking up into the window on the side of the house, the reality struck him: Through the water-streaked glass and into his dimly lit house, he could see, quite plainly, his keys, sitting on the table. He stared at them with haunted eyes. Yes, the fact was undeniable: They were inside, Li was outside, and the double-lock on the solid oak door was between them.

Li turned around and looked down the darkened street. The only sound that could be heard over the rain splashing down on the pavement was the thin rattle of his neighbor's windchimes. It was a peaceful moment, but there was no peace for Li Syaoran. He sat down on the first stair of the porch, soggy and defeated, and then, as he looked out at the rain beating down upon the road, it all started to sink in.

His world was dead. He was locked out of his own house, bruised, cold and exhausted. His kitchen was burned down, his stomach empty, and his breakfast lying in the rain at the bottom of a stairwell by the FoodMart. He had no money, no food, no potholders, nothing. Li rested his elbows in his knees and put his head in his hands. _My life is over._

It was some time after this, a half hour at least, when at last Li stood. The rain was slowing down, and the sun nearly up. This fact was not obvious, as the clouds distorted any chance of seeing the sun; but the sky was a lighter hue of gray than it had been earlier. Slowly, dejectedly, he walked down the steps, one at a time. Morosely moving down the walk and across the lawn, he unhooked the gate to his back yard, slowly pushing open the cold, wet metal. His soggy shoes made _slosh_ing noises as he walked across the gravel path to a window on the side of the house, but Li did not care. He no longer cared much for anything. Pulling out the screen and pushing open the window, he crawled through the small opening.

Li's house smelled of sulfur inside. When he had got to his feet, he stood for several moments, contemplating whether his house might be burning down; and then, like a rock hurled at him at great speed, the realization came back to him.

He had _no kitchen_.

He was not entirely sure what was going to meet his eyes as he walked out of the room and across the hall; he could not remember anything specific that had happened in the past four hours except for the pancake at IHop, which seemed to be filling his entire plane of vision as well as his mind's eye with its exacrability. He stopped when he reached the end of the hall.

His cupboards were blackened on the bottom. The thin coating of paint on his stove had peeled and bubbled in some places, giving it the appearance of oddly-coloured lava, and the side of his refrigerator bore a large, round, black spot. His potholders and his oven mitt could not be found save for several curled threads on the ends of the metal hooks upon which they had been hanging. The ceramic jar holding the majority of his kitchen utensils had survived quite well, but its contents were in rather poor shape: The wooden spoons, closest to the stove, were black and the plastic spatula as well as a pair of chopsticks that he had put in there upon a time had both melted slightly. The spatula was now at an odd 40-degree angle with the handle and half of it was melted into a blob of black plastic, reminding Syaoran of the wax he often observed flowing down the sides of candle on the kitchen table.

_...Pancakes..._

He reached out behind him, hoping to find a chair as he stumbled backwards in incredulous, unaccepting shell-shock. His heels hit the base of his couch and he fell into it heavily, flinging a small pillow onto the floor with his impact. There he sat, unmoving.

After a time he took off his vest and shoes and threw them against the wall, where they made a lovely dent before falling in a heap to the floor. Still he remained, sitting and suffering in silence, his eyes bulging in inconsolable trauma.

The clock on the wall ticked, unaware of his suffering. In fact it was ticking so loudly indeed that Li began to imagine that it was mocking him; perhaps trying to tell him that time goes on, or that it wasn't the end of the world, or another such wisecracking remark that a clock might make.

After a moment he stood up and walked across the room to his singed kitchen. He took the clock down from the wall and turned it over. He opened the battery compartment and took out the batteries, then shut the compartment and set the clock back on the wall. He clenched the batteries in his fist and glared at the clock. It was, at last, silent. He leaned against the counter, staring at his burnt kitchen and his pancake mix strewn across the counter, the sight of which he might someday be able to recover from with the use of extensive hypnosis.

The IHop pancake returned to his thoughts. He shook his head slightly, unwilling to recall it. But just as soon as he had gotten it out of his head, an even _worse_ thought intruded: the _waffle_. This Syaoran could not bear -- he could not think of it another second -- dropping the batteries on the floor, he turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving a watermark behind. Tortured, he trudged down the hall for what seemed an eternity before he reached his bedroom.

It was over. Done. His life was meaningless. Li could see nothing more to do but go to sleep and hope to never wake up. His bedroom light was still on from when he had woken up and he could not be bothered with turning it off; he walked, mechanically, to his bed and fell into it on his stomach, feeling the water from his clothes seeping into his mattress after several quiet moments. The rain beat down harder than ever upon the roof, and, staring at the crack in the wall where it met the ceiling, he registered that his house was leaking.

* * *

When the telephone rang sometime in the early afternoon Li awoke in a cold sweat. His sleep had not been restful; he had dreamt endlessly of large, starchy buckwheat pancakes that were laughing evilly and glaring at him, despite the fact that they had neither mouths nor eyes. It rang again and Li, barely awake, groaned.

He rolled over and searched blindly with one hand for the receiver. Finding it, he picked it up, lifted his head off the pillow, placed the phone under his ear and layed back down.

"..H'lo?" he mumbled, disconsolate and defeated. The voice that greeted him on the other end was cheerful and happy, as was its bearer, generally. _Sakura..? _Such an excited, uplifting tone at the end of a crisis like this could only belong to one person. Kinomoto Sakura, another of Li's long-term friends, was pure sunshine, all the time. She had a mentality that said "nothing is too horrible that at least one good thing can't come out of it" so obviously she might as well have had it written all over her in glow-in-the-dark marker. Li appreciated that in a person, but it was also beyond him how she could possibly think that way.

Li was making to sit up when he stopped in mid-motion at Sakura's next words. "Happy birthday!" Birthday? He frowned slightly. Me? Tomoyo's vague comment of "forget the icing?" trickled into his mind and he realized that in the middle of everything that had happened, he had completely forgotten that his birthday was today. What a way to spend the morning of one's birthday. A swell present, indeed...

"Anyway, so," Sakura's voice floated into his head, "what are you up to today?"

Li took a moment to answer. His reply was forced, tortured. "..Nothing..." _...Pan...cakes..._

He did not hear Sakura's answer. The events of the early morning came flooding back to him and her voice faded away as the despair engulfed him.

Dimly, far in the distance, he was aware of Sakura inviting him over and even in his deep desolation, he was able to recognize a bit of appreciation towards her, trying to cheer him up at a time like this. What a gal.

After she had hung up, Syaoran lay in bed with the phone under his ear for some time, and he might have drifted off again had it not been for the incredibly loud beeping that screamed from the receiver and bore an uncanny resemblance to his smoke alarm. Li grunted irritatedly in protest and pushed the receiver over the side of the bed, where it took the cord and the rest of the phone with it, landing on the floor with a crash.

At this he sat up, slowly. He picked up the phone. He put it back on the table. And seeing a pair of socks on the edge of his bed, he pulled them on and stumbled out of the room.

Li was heading for the living room, perhaps for his shoes; or perhaps there was no coherent thought at all regarding his motions, simply routine. But as he neared the end of the hallway he turned rather subconsciously to walk out the door, damp, destitute, inside-out socks and all.

It was a warm, bright day outside. The sky was still gray in places, but the clouds were clearing, showing rays of sun peeking through. Li's hedges were wet and left streaks of water on his pants as he brushed against them. The abundant spiderwebs between the leaves stood out in the dull green, the lacy designs speckled with dewdrops. It looked that was going to be a nice day out.

But Syaoran did not see any of this. Too tired, traumatized and drained of all feeling, he walked despondently down the sidewalk.

* * *

Li stood on the damp astro-turf that covered Sakura's concrete landing in front of the door. He knocked, once, then hesitantly rang the doorbell. Upon hearing a faint shout from inside beckoning him in, he pushed open the door.

He walked inside and made to shut the door, then stopped short with his hand still on the knob. Could it be? Syaoran sniffed, once. There was only one thing in the world that produced such a smell as now filled Sakura's house... he hardly dared to believe it. He was certain that the smell seeping out the door was the mere aftermath of his early morning trauma -- a redolent memory, perhaps. He stood still, his shadow framed upon the carpet by the light shining through the open door. Caught up in the aroma and his confusion, for a moment he quite forgot where he was.

Presently, Sakura peeked her head around the corner and stepped into the living room with a flowery apron and a spatula. "Hi, Li! Come on in," she smiled and turned to go back towards the kitchen, calling over her shoulder to him. "I made pancakes."

Li stood on the threshold for a moment. He smiled. Shutting the door, he went to follow her into the kitchen.

_Pancakes_.


End file.
